Asia, India—Garhwal, Bhagirathi III, Southwest Face

Climbs And Expeditions

Climb Year:

Publication Year: 1990

Bhagirathi III, Southwest Face. Our three-man expedition climbed the Allen Fyffe route on Bhagirathi III. We got to Base Camp at Nandanban of August 5 and acclimatized until August 15. Kwag Bong-Sin and Jang Hong-Youl set out from Advance Base at 5000 meters on the 16th. Not skilled in load-hauling, they climbed only two or three pitches a day. They continued until August 22, when they got to a good ledge at 5580 meters. They waited there in bad weather for three days. As they descended from the ledge, a pin pulled out and one of them fell 10 meters, but he only bruised a calf. More bad weather followed. On September 4, the pair got back up to 5400 meters and to the ledge on the 5th. The next day, they reached 5800 meters, the start of the snow. On September 7, they climbed the seven pitches of snow to the summit. They descended the north snow face, where they were helped by Indian and Japanese climbers.

Bae Seung-Youl, Korean Alpine Club

Asia, India—Garhwal, Bhagirathi III, Southwest Face

Bhagirathi III, Southwest Face. Our three-man expedition climbed the Allen Fyffe route on Bhagirathi III. We got to Base Camp at Nandanban of August 5 and acclimatized until August 15. Kwag Bong-Sin and Jang Hong-Youl set out from Advance Base at 5000 meters on the 16th. Not skilled in load-hauling, they climbed only two or three pitches a day. They continued until August 22, when they got to a good ledge at 5580 meters. They waited there in bad weather for three days. As they descended from the ledge, a pin pulled out and one of them fell 10 meters, but he only bruised a calf. More bad weather followed. On September 4, the pair got back up to 5400 meters and to the ledge on the 5th. The next day, they reached 5800 meters, the start of the snow. On September 7, they climbed the seven pitches of snow to the summit. They descended the north snow face, where they were helped by Indian and Japanese climbers.

Bae Seung-Youl, Korean Alpine Club

This AAJ article has been reformatted into HTML. Please contact us if you spot an error.